


Better Man

by redfiona



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: M/M, mention of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:22:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock trusts John with his own life, but doesn't trust himself with John's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Man

**Author's Note:**

> Set between seasons 1 and 2.

"Don't fall in love with me, John. It won't end well."

To Sherlock's mind, it was a particularly blinkered look of stupidity that was John's first response to this statement. It was followed by a small shake of his head, "I'm not even going to ask what makes you think that,"

"Your eyes dilate when you talk to me, and your cheeks flush slightly, you stand up straighter next to me and you mirror my body positioning. Not to mention you talk about me all the time, even when you don't need to."

"I notice you don't mention the blog,"

"Yes, well, however sensationalised your blog is, I have to admit it's brought me a few interesting cases." Sherlock deliberately didn't respond to John's erroneous suggestion that he was just an incorrigible show off.

Sherlock's attention was taken up by the next case and by the time he was able to focus on his life again, he saw that any chance of remedying John's behaviour was lost. Even with the truly terrible standard of teaching of psychiatric medicine in Britain, John must have known what Sherlock's diagnosis meant; it wasn't as though Sherlock hid it or its effects. But then again, was an Army medic likely to keep up to date with psychiatric medicine? Sherlock lacked data on this, and tried to decide if the information was worth the effort of finding it out and remembering it. While the average population didn't contain that many military or ex-military medics, and therefore an average case was unlikely to require the knowledge, his own particular cases featured an ex-Army doctor prominently and more exact information on John's knowledge base might prove invaluable in future. Sherlock resolved to get the information, both what the army expected you to learn and what John in particular had learnt in addition to standard medical training. He would ring Mycroft, who would give him a speech about being busy, and about proper use of resources, when all Mycroft would have to do to get the information would be to tell Anthea to pull the details that Mycroft had already collected in John’s file. It would have been more efficient if Mycroft simply gave him the information when Sherlock asked for it.

John's behaviour hadn't altered. It was insufferable. Obviously, John didn't understand. The problem was making it clear to John why loving Sherlock was a bad idea.

He thought that John laboured under the same delusion as Lestrade that, with enough careful handling, Sherlock would become "normal". As though he'd ever stoop that low.

Sherlock waited until John had finished writing the case up for the blog, there was no point distracting him while he was being useful. John finished typing, let out a satisfied sigh, hit the post button and made tea. Sherlock took the cup presented to him and waited for John to sit down. There was no reason to encourage histrionics, and he found John agitated himself less when he was sat down.

"Of course, you could say that Moriarty is the better man."

John scrunched his face up the way he did when he found something Sherlock said to be baffling and socially unfortunate. That was exactly the reaction Sherlock was looking for. His plan might actually work this time.

"Think about it, John. He doesn't want attention for what he does, not from the public anyway, he's happy just to get paid. I could never do that. He doesn't smoke, he doesn't do drugs, as far as I could ascertain," and he had tried hard to find any weakness in Moriarty's armour, anything that could render him traceable, "and I also doubt he leaves severed heads in fridges, at least his own." Sherlock knew for a fact that Moriarty had left at least one head in someone else's fridge before now. "He has a wonderful mind."

Sherlock hoped that John would assume that Sherlock admired Moriarty, which wasn't wrong per se, the man did have a fantastic mind, it was just a shame about the use to which he put it. Most crime was so petty and boring, although Moriarty's own endeavours raised it to an art form. He hoped that John would think that Sherlock might have done what Moriarty did, or might still do it, given the correct circumstances. He hoped that it would put John off.

Luck obviously only worked for the foolish. Instead of any logical response, John shook his head, looked at Sherlock, using the look Sherlock filed under 'this is one of Sherlock's quirks, best humour him', and returned to his tea. Sherlock slumped in his chair and deliberately played nothing but Schopenhauer all afternoon.

John was impossible.

And Sherlock was quickly running out of options. The obvious thing, to pick at John's weak points until he realised that Sherlock was a horrible human being, might have led to John leaving and that was intolerable.

Sherlock weighed the probabilities, and came up with another strategy. This one was risky, but it should work.

Having obtained the cocaine, he left it in some obvious hiding places in the flat, hoping that John would find it. He had planned to be around to see John find it but there was a knock on the door, followed by a text from Mycroft saying 'get in the car'. He was being summoned, and Anthea did not look in a mood to be trifled with.

Mycroft's excessive fondness for the dramatic showed itself again in his choice of venue. The man had a perfectly functional office in Whitehall but once again chose to meet with Sherlock in the dark and dingy bowels of an abandoned hospital.

"Earlier today, you purchased a large quantity of cocaine after promising you wouldn't. Mother will be upset."

Sherlock felt like telling Mycroft that she wouldn't be upset if Mycroft didn't tell her, but Mycroft was an incorrigible tattle-tale and always had been. "It's for experimental purposes."

"Nonsense, unless you're planning to dose giraffes with it. Also, if you had intended to use the cocaine for an experiment, you would merely have taken some from Scotland Yard's evidence stores, instead of purchasing it from," he looked at Anthea, who recited the many aliases of Sherlock's preferred supplier.

"Is Lestrade aware that you're listening in on the Met's radio channels again?"

"My department is required to monitor all communication in Britain for national security purposes." Mycroft really was getting more pompous as he got older.

"Do you really think that I would have let you find out if I hadn’t wanted you to know?" It wasn't quite the truth. He hadn’t intended for Mycroft to discover his purchase, because he had known that once Mycroft knew, this meeting was inevitable. That being said, the meeting itself might help convince John that there was a problem; Mycroft was hand's off unless the matter was serious.

"Sherlock, you've never been able to hide _anything_ from me."

"You can test me if you want to. I am still entirely clean and sober." He watched Mycroft assess him, and tried to follow his train of thought. For all that John thought that he was amazing, Sherlock knew he couldn't hold a candle to his brother's powers of deduction when Mycroft actually bothered to use them.

Mycroft drew his brows together and sighed, "have you considered talking to John?"

"I tried."

"No, you told John. Conversations involve you listening."

Mycroft sent him home with a warning that if, in two day's time, any trace of drugs remained in Sherlock's flat, Mother would be informed, but that he had that grace period to fix this.

He flushed the cocaine down the toilet while John was out at work. Sherlock had no idea if John had found any of it; he hadn't seen John since he had returned from his meeting with Mycroft. While none of the obviously placed stashes had been touched, that didn't mean that John hadn't found them, John’s silence, and the fact that he had left for work without speaking to Sherlock suggested that John had found them and was fuming. If that was true, then at least this whole charade had served its purpose.

It was such a waste, not the money spent, but the value that the powder he was flushing had for him. He missed cocaine. It was the one thing, other than a good case, those rare and beautiful things, that made the world move at the right speed. Without it, and with the ridiculous smoking ban, and the stupidity of the average criminal, everything seemed as slow as rush hour traffic. He'd tried amphetamines and energy drinks. Neither worked. The rush was too diffuse; he couldn't concentrate on anything when he took them. No, there was nothing like cocaine. Or crime. He wondered what Moriarty was planning next. He had been far too quiet recently.

John returned late that evening, to a scene of some chaos. "I'm not even going to ask." He carefully removed the piles of paper from his preferred spot on the sofa, tried to decide how to move some of the dirty dishes from the table in front of him, and whether or not this was a situation that required calling Mycroft. John had seen the white powder that Sherlock had tried to conceal underneath the replacement skull that Sherlock had put on the fireplace and had tried not to assume the worst. Having come back from work to find the flat looking worse than it had done after an explosion, John was starting to think the powder had been cocaine, and Mycroft had insisted that John ought to call him if Sherlock had a relapse. John would normally have ignored Mycroft's orders, because Mycroft was a prat, but looking at the state of Sherlock himself, John was more worried about what Sherlock could do to himself.

"You don't need to call Mycroft." Sherlock didn't quite snap at John, but there was a distinct sourness to his tone. "I didn't take any of what was, indeed, cocaine. And don't bother asking how I knew; your train of thought is easily followed. The first thing you did on entering the room was to check whether the skull had been moved. Seeing that it had, you tried to see if I was wearing any nicotine patches, in the hope that the symptoms that you can see and worry are from cocaine intoxication, are instead from me overdoing the patches. Being unable to see any patches, you assumed the worst, and looked out of the window to see if Anthea was downstairs, hoping that Mycroft already knew and had sent for me because that would mean you wouldn't have to go against your principles and talk to him about me."

"Sherlock." John looked like he wanted to say something more, something that he couldn't phrase to his own satisfaction, even if Sherlock could do it for him easily. "Bloody hell." What John was trying to ask was 'why?'

That's when Sherlock got a horrible, cold feeling, one he hated; it was the one that told him when Mycroft is right. John wasn't exceptionally stupid, he wasn't slow on the uptake when presented with all the data, and, and this was where Mycroft was correct, Sherlock had not presented John with enough data.

"I explained to you that falling in love with me was a bad idea. You didn't change your behaviour. This was the best way I could think of to make it clear to you why it was a bad idea."

This was going to be the difficult part, where John would say something pointlessly emotional but just rational enough that Sherlock was obliged to try and translate it into something that made sense because John was worth the understanding. "It's not that simple, even you know that." There was a pause. "I'll do my best not to let it affect you."

"That's not the point." How to explain himself? "I am not a good man. I will use you and hurt you to solve a case, and I won't care that I'm doing it." He could see John nodding, as though he accepted this as some sort of price. Could John not see exactly how far Sherlock would go? Why was it so hard to get John to understand? "I know you, John, and you're not reckless, you merely have an under-active sense of danger. But one day, there'll be a situation, and you'll weigh up the risks, and where even you would stop because it's too dangerous, you'll carry on and be killed because you ran headlong into something to try to save me. I won't let that happen to you." Sherlock had to hope that the truth would get through to John.

"I ... You ... Jesus Christ." Something appeared have got through to John at least. "Just." John pulled himself together. "For future reference, if you want to put someone off, don't tell them that you'll go to ridiculous lengths just to keep them safe."

"I mean it, John."

"I know you do. And I will try but even you know it's not as simple as that."

"It should be."

"But it isn't. If it were, you wouldn't get half the jobs you get."

"True." It wasn't everything that Sherlock wanted, he wanted John here with him but he wanted John to be safe, but it was as much as he was going to get.  



End file.
